China's Economy to Maintain Last Year's Growth Rate in 2002

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, January 17, 2002

China's Economy to Maintain Last Year's Growth Rate in 2002

China's economic development this year can maintain the growth rate of last year, Zeng Peiyan, minister in charge of the State Development Planning Commission said Wednesday at a press conference.

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China's Economy to Keep Growing: Minister

China's economic development this year can maintain the growth rate of last year, Zeng Peiyan, minister in charge of the State Development Planning Commission said Wednesday at a press conference.

As a result of the government's "efforts to boost domestic demand" and its proactive fiscal policy, which has included heavy investment on infrastructure construction, the GDP (gross domestic product) of last year was up by 7.3 percent over the previous year, Zeng told reporters during a news conference.

Zeng said he was confident China could maintain last year's growth rate in 2002 despite the global economic downturn and challenges it faces from its entry into the World Trade Organization.

"Facing this situation, some friends may ask, China is opening wider to the outside world. Can China maintain last year's growth facing the world economic downturn? My answer is 'yes'," Zeng said.

"Talking about GDP growth, our goal for each year's growth in the five-year plan is 7.0 percent. I estimate that through our efforts, we will achieve this objective for this year," Zeng added later.

The growth rate last year was down from the 8.0 percent growth rate in 2000, but still made China the fastest expanding major economy in the world, amid the worst global slowdown in two decades.

Good Position to Maintain Current Rapid

Zeng said China was in a good position to maintain the current rapid growth rate because of the huge potential of its market of 1.3 billion people, the increasing competitiveness of its enterprises, its rich human resources, high savings rate and abundant foreign exchange reserve.

The government will continue its policy of maintaining growth through increasing internal demand and allocating more money for infrastructure construction, especially in poor rural areas, such as the economically backward western region, Zeng said.

He said improving legal and market systems also make China an ideal place for investment, trade and the commencement of businesses for various skilled people.

Zeng acknowledged that China is faced with a worse than ever international economic situation this year.

He outlined four counter measures to offset the impact of shrinking overseas demands on China's economy, which is becoming more and more linked to the global economy. The measures include increasing domestic demand, accelerating economic restructuring, opening wider to the outside world and lifting the standard of living.

He said China will continue to attract foreign direct investment in order to boost investment demand in the country. China attracted a total of 46.85 billion U.S. dollars of foreign funds last year.

China will try to attract more foreign funds by opening up its service market and giving multinational companies access to reforming loss-making state-owned enterprises and disposal of non- performing loans of Chinese property management companies.

Zeng pointed out that the healthy, and rapid development of China's economy is of significance to the Asia-Pacific regional economy and the world economy.

Most T-Bond Proceeds on Western Development

The Chinese government will spend most of this year's treasure bond proceeds to step up the development of the western part of the country, the top planner said.

Priority will be given to road, power supply, radio and TV broadcasting and grain-for-forest projects in western China, said Zeng.

In specific terms, Zeng said this year the government will ensure that the three prefectures and 280 counties where there are no bituminous roads will all have such roads toward central cities, and try to let all the 704 towns in western areas now with no access to power supply use electricity.

In addition, the state will enable the people in 10,000 administrative villages to receive radio and TV programs, and launch the project of converting arable land to forest in the western region on a full scale.

Trees will be planted in no less than four million hectares of arable land and barren hills this year, Zeng said at a press conference.

Early Start of Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway

China is to finalize the scheme for an early start of the construction of the planned Beijing-Shanghai high speed railway this year, Zeng Peiyan said .

Experiments are currently underway to test the technical models for the railway project so that the final decision can be made as early as possible, he said at the press conference.

Railway transportation between Beijing and Shanghai has been very busy. The transport capacity of the Beijing-Shanghai railway was improved last year when several new high-quality trains were put into operation.

By People's Daily Online

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